Special Sections - Living on the Peninsula, Fall 2014

FALL 2014

Beautiful bountiful, beaches Beach resources of ancient Klallam Clallam County CoastSavers Tour of Port Townsend beaches Rialto Beach Beach critters

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Contents 23

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Departments Outdoor Recreation 5 | Superb peninsula beaches for walking or hiking

Out & About 26 | Behind the scenes of the 15th Port Townsend Film Festival

Food & Spirits 9 | A hearty yet light soup for fall

Now & Then 37 | Point Hudson wasn’t always bustling with activity

Arts & Entertainment 10 | A look at coastal art from the past, present and future

The Living End 38 | Beach Wise

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10

In Focus

Beautiful, bountiful beaches

17 | Collaboration results in tideland improvements A peek into the health of Sequim Bay 20 | Keeping our beaches clean Washington CoastSaver’s program keeps beaches clean and safe 23 | Beach discoveries Interesting critters from the high tide line to the intertidal 34 | Schooner Martha en route to race Crew also will spread the word about Port Townsend during travels 35 | Beauty and mystery of Rialto Beach A “mansion” overlooking the beach 36 | Beach resources of ancient Klallam Foraging for food was a full-time occupation for ancestral S’Klallam On our cover: Sea stacks and driftwood are signatures of the Olympic Peninsula’s beaches on the Pacific Coast. Photo by Patricia Morrison Coate.

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Vol. 10, Number 3 • Living on the Peninsula is a quarterly publication.

147 W. Washington St., Sequim WA 98382 © 2014 Sequim Gazette John Brewer, Publisher Steve Perry, Advertising Director Editorial: Patricia Morrison Coate, Editor pcoate@sequimgazette.com Production: Mary Field, Graphic Designer Trish Tisdale, Page Designer Advertising: (360) 683-3311 • (360) 452-2345 226 Adams St. Port Townsend, WA 360-385-2900 Fred Obee: fobee@ptleader.com © 2014 Port Townsend Leader

Rialto Beach

OUTDOOR

RECREATION

With sand beneath our toes Peninsula offers superb beaches for a walk or a hike

Story and photos by Michael Dashiell At some point in my life, maybe four or five years ago, I realized I am a true Pacific Northwestern guy. No, it’s not the sandals-withsocks thing or the fact I love more often than not terrible professional sports teams (this year’s an exception). It’s the way I react when people talk about going to a beach. I have relatives living in various parts of the country and even if I’m in sunny southern California — or Texas or near Idaho’s Lake Coeur d’Alene, wherever — and someone asks about heading to the beach, I instinctively ask things like, “What kind of beach? Southern Oregon style? Sand dunes Northern Oregon? Mid-coast Pacific sandy or north coast rocky? Tide pools and barnacles or smooth rock? I need to know what kind of shoes/ sandals/boots!”

Seems like there are 20 different kinds of beaches in Washington. As a boy growing up for a time on Bainbridge Island, I loved testing my mettle by disregarding shoes and getting my toes bespeckled with bits of rock and shells as I explored small eddies and seaweed-strewn driftwood on the island’s northwestern beaches, searching for limpets or signs of the occasional geoduck.

I don’t do that much anymore — mostly I have a tough time finding time to explore our beaches than any particular distaste for getting dirty — but for the Olympic Peninsula visitor and resident alike, it’s worth taking a day trip to find some hiking treasures along our shorelines.

IN SEQUIM Well, let’s just get that big, beautiful monstrosity out of the way first, shall we? The Dungeness Spit is by far and away my favorite beach hike, though I admit in all my years here (13 and counting) and years visiting I’ve never made the full trip there and back. Been close a few times, but time and lack of conditioning prevailed.

The spit is the result of sand and debris carried from the Olympic Mountains into the strait by the Dungeness River. As the river meets the strait, the debris is deposited on the strip of land. It has the distinction of being the longest natural spit in the United States at about five miles long, so full hikes to the lighthouse and back are about 10 miles.

Here, wildlife is protected as the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge; at 636 acres, the refuge includes the sand spit, tidelands and bay, plus wooded area up above the spit. To protect this wildlife, the refuge doesn’t allow for bikes, kites, frisbees and the like, etc., and no pets are allowed on the spit itself. The beauty of the hike, however, more than makes up for any restrictions. Check out the various birds, crabs and other sea life, sun-bleached driftwood logs and beached strands of seaweed, stunning views across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

To access the Dungeness Spit and trail to the lighthouse, travel west from downtown Sequim on U.S. Highway 101 and take Kitchen-Dick Road

north to the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge.

Turn north once again and drive through the recreation area to the refuge parking lot (fee: $3 per family).

For the less adventurous hiker/hikers, a hike at Port Williams Beach is a fun, more brief getaway.

As with any beach, the width of the trail varies greatly depending on tides. At Port Williams, there is a somewhat tenuous gap between the body of water just north of Sequim Bay and the sandy, crumbling cliffs overhead. But views across the Strait of Juan de Fuca, past Protection Island, and on a clear day, of Mount Baker in the Cascade range, are simply not to be missed.

The beach is a typical rocky Washington one: little sand, slippery, algae-covered rocks and lots of deadwood. Unlike some hikes along the Dungeness Spit, you’re less likely to see otters and wide varieties of sea-going fowl, but I often see herons. Also, it’s a popular spot to bring dogs, so if you’re not dog-friendly, be prepared.

Marlyn Nelson County Park at Port Williams is a one-acre day-use park.

To access the beach at Port Williams from downtown Sequim, take Sequim Avenue one mile north to Port Williams Road, then take a right.

Drive about 2.5 miles east (or until car becomes wet).

Other beach stops for quick visits/lunch breaks include small access points at the start of 3 Crabs Road and in the Jamestown area, with access at the corner of Jamestown Road and Wilcox Lane.

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Jamestown Beach

BLYN/DIAMOND POINT To quote my former Gazette colleague Leif Nesheim, the hike to Travis Spit is “an easy, rarely traveled, stroll with some pleasant surprises along the way.”

The hike begins at a county-operated public beach access on Diamond Point. It follows a wide and grassy trail that heads down a slope to a wooden staircase down to a rocky beach. To the east is Protection Island, to the west is Travis Spit. If Port Williams offers a challenge to high tides, Travis Spit even more so keeps the PNW hiker on his/her toes. Twisted roots and overhanging trees make passage west a bit tricky, but it’s worth it: The path opens up onto a grass-covered spit that seals off much of Sequim Bay. Get views here of Bell Hill rising to the southwest, waterfront labs of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Battelle Marine Science Lab directly to the west, the Smith dairy farm near the mouth of Bell Creek and visible just north of that, and Gibson Spit that encloses a lagoon by the mouth of Bell Creek to the northwest. Harbor seals are known to visit Travis Spit as well.

You can make the 3.5-mile round trip easily — again, depending on tides.

To get to Travis Spit, take U.S. Highway 101 to Blyn. Take Blyn Crossing to Old Blyn Highway and turn right. Keep left at junction with East Sequim Bay Road. Turn right on Panorama Boulevard to its end, then turn right on Buck Loop Road. Parking is at a small lot by the juncture with Deer Court.

First Beach

IN PORT ANGELES It may look to the casual visitor that Ediz Hook is the way to go for beach hiking in Port Angeles, but other than some spectacular wave-crashing and narrow paths to hike, Ediz Hook isn’t my cup of tea. I prefer hunkering down at Hollywood Beach and then strolling over to the city pier to climb the observation tower for a better view. To access, take U.S. Highway 101 into Port Angeles, swing a right on Lincoln Street and another into the parking lot on East Railroad Avenue.

But my favorite Port Angeles-area beach hike by far is Salt Creek. The last time I was there, I recall standing over a tide pool near Tongue Point, east of the mouth of Salt Creek, trying to get a taste of the local beach flavor. The Salt Creek Recreation Area has a ton of amenities, from camping to standard hiking to playground fun to volleyball and softball/baseball to swimming to

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Dungeness Spit historical sites (this site was home to Fort Hayden during World War II until the federal government declared the site surplus and Clallam County took it over) and tons more, all across 196 acres.

The hard-to-beat views of the Strait of Juan de Fuca include Crescent Bay, Vancouver Island and more.

The highlight, though, is the beaches. This was tide pool heaven when I was a boy on visits to aunts and uncles and Grandma in the 1980s. Crouched over a tide pool watching anemones, sea urchins, sea cucumbers and numerous young fish too fast to classify, I was in heaven. Three decades later, I can relive a bit of that; it’s just harder to get back up.

To get to Salt Creek, follow U.S. Highway 101 west to state Highway 112, about 13 miles west of Port Angeles. After three miles on Highway 112, turn right on Camp Hayden Road and follow it directly to the recreation area.

AND BEYOND There are dozens of other great beach hikes on the Olympic Peninsula’s West End, but my favorite is Rialto Beach, just north of La Push.

With sand — and I mean real, fine sand — and spectacular rock outcroppings to go along with massive pieces of driftwood, a true Pacific breeze and room to breathe, Rialto is a refreshing change from some of the more cramped beach hikes. During the fall, you may spot whales from the beach when they come close to shore during annual migrations and the retreating ocean leaves a glassy sheen. Eagles are replete here as well.

Others may prefer La Push Beach, which actually is a series of beach chains — conspicuously named First, Second and Third Beach. Each of them is, like Rialto, quite sandy as well and hemmed in by bluffs and headlands.

First Beach is the easiest to get to so it can be crowded, especially in the summer and fall months.

Second Beach is a bit easier to get to and Third Beach requires a mileor-so hike through forest land to reach. Still, I kind of like the energy from having a bunch of people enjoying the trek along the Pacific Coast so I prefer First Beach. For those who want to ditch the hiking shoes for some good surf, bring a wetsuit, board or kayak — or just live a little vicariously with a hike headed south toward Second Beach. n

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FOOD&

A hearty yet light soup for fall, with sausage, potatoes, cabbage and garbanzo beans in a light broth. Photo by Viviann Kuehl

SPIRITS Mon Petit Chou Soup INGREDIENTS

Soup for the Season

By Viviann Kuehl Long before the potato, cabbage was a staple for the people of Europe.

It is hard to for us to imagine the primacy of cabbage, but it was everywhere, especially in the daily diet of the poor.

Cabbage was easily grown, prolific and used in a variety of ways, like potatoes are today. Because it was relied upon so much by poorer people, the rich looked down upon it and it went out of fashion as potatoes were introduced, but it remains in the language.

The English word “cabbage” comes from the French “caboche” for head.

French people call the apples of their eyes “mon petit chou” or “my little cabbage.”

Here’s a delicious soup to match fall’s tangy days, blending cabbage and potatoes in a broth both hearty and light, and warmly satisfying. And it’s quick and easy, ready to serve 4 in 20 minutes.

• 4 cups chicken broth or water • 2 cups (16 ounces can) garbanzo beans • 1 small cabbage, core removed and chopped in thin slices or shredded • 1 medium onion, chopped • 3 large potatoes, cubed • 2 garlic cloves, minced • ½ pound kielbasa or other sausage, cut in ¼-inch slices (omit for vegan version) • 1 Tablespoon vinegar • 2 Tablespoons minced parsley (optional)

DIRECTIONS

In a large pot, bring broth or water, garbanzos, cabbage, potato, onion and garlic to a boil, then simmer, covered, until potatoes are done, about 10 minutes. Add sausage and simmer until it’s hot, about 5 more minutes. Stir in vinegar and parsley.

Serve hot with crusty bread to your petit choux.

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ARTS &

ENTERTAINMENT

č’ixwíc n artifacts selected by curator Suzie Bennett for “Trinkets” display case include, from left, a small carving, possibly a fragment of larger piece, ring shape — perhaps of bone, and small bone figure carved on one side.

Visible in background is a contemporary painting by Makah artist Aaron Parker. e

An Artful Coast: Past, Present and Future Story and photos by Christina Williams ancestors whose descendants still live here.

Currently, their artistic legacy is being celebrated with very special exhibit now on display at the Elwha Klallam Heritage Center in Port Angeles.

Some of the oldest artifacts from this site — the ancient Klallam village of č’ixwíc n (pronounced ch-WHEET-son) go back thousands of years.

Bringing the Past Home: The č’ix íc n (Tse-whit-zen) Artifacts w

Exhibit

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Port Angeles city planning director Nathan West emphasizes the importance of collaboration among the city, the local arts community and the tribal community in revitalizing the waterfront.

With the promenade now complete, an upcoming phase of the waterfront development includes cleaning up the popular venue known by its modern name of Hollywood Beach, which is located just east of the Feiro Marine Life Center near the city pier. The beach has hosted tribal canoes since ancient times and the city’s future plans will incorporate bilingual signage in both English and Klallam.

Before we discuss the work of some contemporary local artists, we’ll stay close to home and travel back in time to view some of the earliest creative works found within walking distance of Port Angeles’s downtown waterfront.

The pieces were produced by the Klallam

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If you haven’t been to the Port Angeles downtown waterfront recently, you might be surprised at the many changes that have taken place. The influence of artists and collaboration of many kinds is everywhere. Phase I of the city’s waterfront development — the promenade, is now complete.

Local artists created accents for the project, inspired by the colors and marine life of the coast.

Nearby, galleries and studios are creating new works and a growing number of creative small businesses are emerging. Collaboration is on the rise within the arts community but also among artists and others groups. The Feiro Marine Life Center uses art in its educational ventures as well as its publicly displayed “Fish on the Fence” fundraising program. The area’s native tribes, like the Klallam, always have inhabited the coast that sustains their communities and continues to inspire their art forms.

Many thanks to the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe for sharing its cultural heritage with the rest of us and my gratitude to the Heritage Center staff — especially Suzie Bennett — who worked hard with many others to curate the exhibit. Bennett is generous in this interview as she discusses her profound connection to her ancestors from

the time was perfect to do an exhibit.” She agreed, but she wondered, “How?” On Feb. 14, the Seattle-based exhibits designer visited her and told her that he had found some display cases at a re-sale store in Seattle. “Are they museum quality?” she asked. He said, “Yes,” and that they had come from Toronto via the Seattle Art Museum before being re-sold at $300 apiece. Bennett adds gleefully, “Then they knocked me down to $200 — it was just like they wanted to get rid of them. We said ‘OK!’ So by 6 p.m. on Feb. 14, we had 13 display cases and a really vague idea of what we were going to do with them! By the following week we had a proposal from the exhibits designer of how they might move forward.” By the end of the month they had approval to proceed.

Bennett recalls that by the beginning of March, “we started designing, building mounts and deciding what we were going to have, and

by July 12 it was all here.” The first-time curator made her executive decisions carefully in order to expedite things. “My tribal council was absolutely amazing,” she says, “As soon as we decided to move forward, they just let me do what I needed to do. I checked in as needed to make sure that what we were doing was what the tribe wanted, but for the most part, I had pretty free range. I involved people as needed,” she explains, “Because I never worked down at the [č’ixwíc n] site — I would, on a regular basis, talk with people who were down there.”

Bennett was involved in selecting artifacts for display and says that they didn’t know everything that they were going to have until about three

weeks before the exhibit opened. “We knew things that were coming from the Burke … I kept drawing out a plan of the Great Hall and looking, saying OK — I want this, this and this on display. I wanted you to be able to walk in and get a vague idea of what the village of č’ixwíc n was like. What was in their daily lives? What things were really important?”

In acknowledgement of the historical significance of fishing to the local tribal people, Bennett created an area focused on fishing. She describes the exhibit’s comb artifact as “iconic, observing that, “everyone wants to see it!” The maul and the blade were chosen “because that was how they got stuff done.” She’s awed by the etched stones: “They’re just so personal and amazing — they tell such a beautiful story.” She says of the display case containing the trinkets that appear in the photo, “I felt like when we chose everything, this gives you a little idea of what the Klallam people were like.”

Bennett’s attention is drawn to the display of net weights used in fishing and she admires an exceptional granite piece: “It’s absolutely amazing — looking at it,” she says, “I have another one as well — from the Burke Museum — that was going to go on display, but the granite one was so perfect. If someone were to hand me some granite right now and say, ‘OK — make this!’ I wouldn’t even know how to start!”

As manager of the Heritage Center, Bennett was accustomed to coordinating a variety of social and cultural events there, but she describes her curation of this exhibit as a “whole new experience” adding that, “It was difficult because it was so personal. It’s not just someone’s artifacts …” e

e

the Klallam village of č’ixwíc n or Tse-whit-zen (pronounced ch-WHEET-son). Her insights as a first-time curator offer a glimpse of her steep learning curve in making the exhibit a reality.

The account of the 2004 excavation of č’ixwíc n site is a story in itself. Details about this and other tribal information can be found at the tribe’s website at www.elwha.org.

As Bennett shares her initiation into the world of exhibit curation, the phrase “diving in the deep end” comes to mind. The short version is that she survived and delivered in record time; she also takes care to credit the numerous others who supported her all the way.

The quality result is currently on display just outside her office door, in the Great Hall of the Elwha Klallam Heritage Center in Port Angeles.

Six cases containing č’ixwíc n artifacts flank the length of the hall on both sides. Bennett takes us back to the early days of creating the nowrealized exhibit. It was back in February: “When it first started, it was just me with our tribal archaeologist Bill White. I was extremely overwhelmed,” she confesses. “Andrew Whiteman (an exhibits designer who then was working at the University of Washington’s Burke Museum), and the other staff at the Burke were great — they held my hand through the entire process.”

Bennett describes how Whiteman approached her about doing an exhibit at the Heritage Center.

He was familiar with the artifact collection, having curated the Elwha River exhibit that was soon to close at the Burke. She remembers how “he had asked about bringing some of the artifacts back home,” and that he “suggested that e

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Above: Clark Mundy gives a preview of his work from his studio. Mundy and his partner Leya Heart will attend Arts in Action in September and the Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival in October, where Mundy will be a featured artist.

Right: The Lower Elwha Klallam tribe hired architect Michael Gentry AIA to help it transform an old industrial building into a cultural landmark and gathering place.

The Burke staff brought its pieces in the day before the opening. Bennett’s work with the artifacts was part of her responsibility as curator, but it also was deeply moving for her. “That’s when we did the installation … I remember when they brought out the comb and I just burst into tears. This wasn’t just some artifact — this belongs to my family. It was so important for me to do this and I felt so honored that the tribe was allowing me to do this.”

She describes the day that she went to pick up the artifacts at the Burke Museum with tribal members Frances Charles and Arlene Wheeler: “I just looked at them and was thinking that they’ve been fighting for this for so long — for 10 years now — and finally we’re able to bring these things home — to give the people that were down there a little bit of closure I guess …”

Bennett remembers when she and the exhibits designer were looking at a spindle whorl. He recalled seeing a needle somewhere in the collection and was wondering about its use, asking, “Maybe … is that for the loom?” She tells how the staff pulled out the needle so they could look at it and describes her own shock of recognition: “I said, ‘NO! That’s what you make nets with!’ I was thinking, ‘Wow! I recognize something!’ He looked at me and asked, ‘How do you know that?’ I said, ‘Well … that’s what my grandpa used!’ It was so cool thinking, ‘This was an ancient artifact that my ancestors used to make nets and they’re still making them today. They look exactly the same. When I saw

12 LOP Fall 2014

it I thought, ‘I don’t know what you call it, but I know exactly what it is!’ My hope is to keep bringing more things back. I think it’s all going to work out …”

The Lower Klallam Heritage Center is at 401 E. First St., Port Angeles. Contact the center at 360417-8545.

Inspired by the Beach: Contemporary Artists and Artful Collaborators

CLARK MUNDY In the first part of our tour of local arts on the coast, we learned about the ancient artists whose work is displayed in the Great Hall of Klallam Heritage Center. Before we leave the Great Hall, we hear the gentle rush of a flowing fountain and turn back toward the far end north end of the hall. There it is — the source: a 9-foot handhammered copper salmon sculpture fountain, by featured artist, Clark Mundy. The installation was a collaboration with landscape architect Tom Rankin, who plumbed the fountain and created its planter and cedar bench. Entitled “Elwha: Journey Home,” the piece pays tribute to the salmons’ return to their ancient spawning grounds on the Elwha River. As we head toward the front door, we see Mundy’s copper work on the Great Hall’s pillars.

We exit the Heritage Center through the doors of the Great Hall. Soon we’ll have the honor of

meeting Mundy in his own creative habitat — his studio! First, let’s turn around to view the exterior of the entrance to this very unique landmark building. Just above the doors we see four copper “welcome masks” that greet visitors from their lofty mounts just above the four pillars in front of the building. Mundy produced the masks that were designed in the old Salish style by Al Charles Jr., his friend and carving mentor.

In 2000, Mundy was invited to study traditional carving with Lower Elwha artists Charles and Darrell Charles Jr. The men collaborated on several pieces. Their 2006 mixed-media work called “Elwha Return” depicts the lifecycle of the salmon.

They donated the work to the North Olympic Land Trust as a fundraiser. You can see it at the Clallam County Courthouse, but not just yet — we’re off to the foothills to pay the artist a visit!

As we sit across the yard from his studio, Mundy and his life partner Leya Heart talk about their strong family and personal ties to this land.

The natural environment inspires Mundy’s art and his work in construction, boatbuilding and related activities honed his understanding of materials and engineering. After the onset of health issues earlier this year, the self-taught artist is glad to be back in his studio, which is next to the couple’s thriving garden surrounded by a protective fence.

As we talk, it’s hard to miss the pair of hammered copper hands that rest on one end of the small table before us. “Those are Leya’s hands,” says Mundy. We learn that these

Above: Jennifer Bright’s many art forms include felt-making. Draped in one of her colorful felted silk scarves, Bright displays a few of her recently felted rocks.

Left: Yvette Two Rabbits celebrates her Haida ancestry as she creates one-of-a-kind dolls that authentically depict the traditional elements of her culture.

hands are not just decorative. Mundy plans to incorporate them as a signaling device in the garden gate’s latch. That way, they can tell at a glance whether the gate has been latched or not.

From where we sit we can see the exterior of his studio and on the wall facing the house is a small copper mask with a story …

The mask is a testament to Mundy’s eagerness to return to making art. As he was beginning to recuperate, he sat and carefully peeled a multitude of green cedar whips, which he attached to the mask to radiate like the rays of the sun, extending the size of it. The supple branches began to twist and turn in unexpected ways, shifting with the fluctuating humidity and making the Sun Mask come alive. The piece is perhaps a charming reminder that nature, too, is eager for self-expression.

“I spend a lot of time in here,” says Mundy as we enter the studio, “Well, he did …” adds Heart, who is devoted to his recovery and excited about his return to his art. “This is really a kind of turning point,” she observes, “He hasn’t been in here quite so much — until just this week.” As we enter the studio, we notice rolls of copper that are standing on end. Heart explains that the shipment recently arrived. “He’s ready to go!” she says.

So — what will Mundy do with all that copper?

He planned to spend most of August working on a set of large masks for the new Makah Family Pavilion, a longhouse-style building now under construction near the water at Neah Bay. Makah artist John Goodwin (aka Nytom) is collaborating

with Mundy on the design of the masks.

Mundy pulls out some drawings. “I have the plans for it right here,” he says, “I’m making the masks that go on the end of the logs.” He points to a large metal ring. “That’s how big they are,” he says, “They’re big. There’s quite a few of them.

That’s 24-inch.” He shows us a large mask with eyebrows that look like fish. “This is Salmon Man,” he explains.

Mundy talks about a building in a photo: “This is Jamestown (S’Klallam) … the south campus building.” He refers to two of the eight masks that are incorporated into the building’s design and mounted on the ends of logs; one mask seems to have waves on the forehead.

“It’s hair — it’s a fancy hairdo!” he says,” It’s a man and woman …” Heart chimes in: “Klallam Man, Klallam Woman — they overlook the bay from the south side. It’s from the Social Services Building.” Mundy adds, “It’s a people place — that’s why the man and the woman. The others are there, too — Salmon Man and The Singer.”

Before we say goodbye, Heart shares this great news: Mundy will have a show at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center in 2015. Details TBA (see contact info below) Mundy and Heart will be at one of their favorite local events in 2014: the Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival (Oct. 10-12) where Mundy is a featured artist.

For more information, visit his websites at www.coppersalmon.com or facebook.com/clark. mundy, e-mail: info@coppersalmon.com, or call 360-912-1193.

YVETTE TWO RABBITS We’re headed to Sequim to meet Yvette Two Rabbits, a Sequim artist of Haida descent. Two Rabbits has a bachelor’s degree in art and works as a Certified Therapeutic riding instructor at the Native Horsemanship Riding Center that she founded in 2004. Two Rabbits spent the early part of her childhood in Nevada and then moved to eastern Washington before relocating with her family to western Washington. There she felt instantly at home in the Northwest coastal environment. She is a skilled doll maker, and in her work, she strives to portray her cultural traditions as authentically as possible. One of her dioramas was purchased by the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria and is now part of its permanent collections.

Two Rabbits’ doll is a Wind Dancer. She describes it in more detail: “It portrays a Haida man or woman wearing a mask and dancing as a Wind Spirit. They’re probably at a potlatch or family gathering. The Wind is a very powerful entity for our people and the masked dancers portray different things in our mythology and our lives. I thought it would be really cool to make a Wind Dancer, so I did. The doll is made of polymer clay, cedar bark, wool, abalone, clam shells, driftwood, sand, a baby Dungeness crab and other natural products from the beach.”

You can see Two Rabbits’ work in the gallery at the Elwha Klallam Heritage Center, 401 E. First St., Port Angeles. To contact her directly, call 360-582-0907.

Fall 2014 LOP 13

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Above left: Lauren Jeffries Johnson designed this beaded necklace to give the copper salmon the appearance of swimming in its natural environment. Copper salmon by Clark Mundy.

Above middle: Young Johnson’s approach to redefine dining includes re-inventing the interior and exterior of her prime location at Lincoln Street and Railroad Avenue in Port Angeles, home to her new H20 restaurant.

Right: Tammy Hall’s driftwood mermaid at Ediz Hook depicts a trend-setting, red-headed seaweed beauty — from her lovely head-dress and copper arm band to her wood-burned body art.

LAUREN JEFFRIES JOHNSON Next up, we’re going meet Lauren Jeffries Johnson whose business-hours headquarters is her downtown Port Angeles bead store, a repository of wonderful bright shiny things and haven for the creative. Johnson is a versatile artist and a consummate collaborator. Look closely at her necklace and you may recognize the copper fish. If you don’t, then read on, and she will tell you the story herself. If you do recognize her mystery collaborator, then read anyway for the beauty of her description. Enjoy …

“Although most of my work may tend to be glittery and glitzy, I take most of my inspiration from nature. Clark approached me — it was actually Leya, his significant other. I had seen them at an art show and she said, ‘Instead of hanging this fish from a cord, why don’t we do something and make it look like it came from the ocean?’ My challenge became ‘How do I take this copper fish — which hangs inorganically, almost like it had just been caught and was hanging off a stringer — how do I give it more life and make it look like it’s jumping in the surf in its natural environment?

“It was the central object, but the ‘theme’ came from that. I don’t want to blatantly put it in the center of the necklace, because in nature, that’s not the way it would be, and in the water, it wouldn’t be that way. How could I make it dynamic, have movement, be asymmetric and have the feeling of the actual water that it would be swimming in?

“I used waxed Irish linen in the sand colors and because of the fish being in copper and brass colored patina, I used copper metallic sewing thread and size 10 seed beads — clear and blue clear, so it actually looked like foam.

I incorporated more metal pieces and organic shapes — to help balance the heavy object of the fish on the other side.

“That sort of inspiration is all around us,

when we take a walk on the beach and we look at the cliff and we watch the trees and how they grow and the plants that spring up around them, nothing is symmetrical. When you love nature and are an observer of nature it just sings to you that way — and that’s how you see everything …”

View her work at Udjat Beads, 129 E. First St., Port Angeles, 360-417-5489.

TAMMY HALL We’re going to the beach, to meet our next artist, who depends on the tides to bring her chosen medium ashore. You may have guessed that Hall is a driftwood artist, but that’s an understatement.

She selected her mermaid to show you, since the theme of this tour is art and creative work inspired by the beach. Hall gathers a lot of driftwood and artful possibilities at the beach, and while her work speaks for itself, we’ll learn about the artist in her a few of her own words: “Driftwood in particular has a voice all its own by the time the sea is done with it. When you pick up an individual piece, just look at the beach, how it erases a lot of it. Sometimes you can’t tell what a tree was originally or where it came from. It might have been a piece of a two by four. You don’t know. By the time the sea is done with it, it has imprinted a different life on the wood and now it’s completely different.

“In my eyes, I see things in the wood that no one else seems to be able to see. When I take people to the beach, for instance, a friend of mine says, ‘I’ll walk on the beach with you,’ and she picks up a single piece of wood and says, ‘Gee, doesn’t that look like a fish?’ And I’ll say, ‘Yes, it looks like a fish, but it also looks like the trapezius on the back of a bison.’ It’s a single part of a huge whole that I see right off the bat. I see things differently and every piece of wood that I pick up tells me something like that …

“So, when I’m gathering wood, I want for it to tell me what it is. I think, ‘What are you?’ and I

see it. It’s like all I have to do is put it together with all the other pieces. It’s exactly like a puzzle with one difference — I have millions more pieces than I need — and there’s no picture on the box!

Hall’s driftwood unicorn won this year’s Sequim Arts annual juried show and she’s only been working in the medium for a very short time. It’s hard to imagine what she’ll be doing next! To find out more about her current work, call 360-457-5582.

JENNIFER BRIGHT We’re down at the Landing Mall in Port Angeles near the waterfront to talk with Jennifer Bright. She spends a lot of time at the Artists Studio there and she also shows her work at the Harbor Art Gallery across the street. Bright likes variety and works in several media. In addition to being an artist, she’s also a marine biologist.

When asked about the focus of her art studies, she replies, “I had three — photography, ceramics and etching. I don’t have any etching in here (the Artists Studio) but it was one of the things that I was doing and then I graduated and was doing a lot of Raku (ceramics).” The Artists Studio carries a variety of Bright’s work, including photography, and black and white ceramics with etched designs called “sgrafitto” work. Also worth mentioning are her fabulous felted silk scarves and felted stones. Yes … felted stones.

“I don’t even know how I came up with that thought to do it!” she confesses, “but I like felting and I’ve been doing scarves and I just came home one night and so I thought well … I did beach walks.

I started bringing the felted stones into the gallery for displays — they’re kind of interesting.”

Bright explains how people can’t resist the felted rocks and they wanted to buy her “display” accents. There’s is something primal and textural about the stones covered in felt. And they go so well with the felted silk scarves that she makes.

We’re fortunate to get a preview of Bright’s

Fall 2014 LOP 15

current project — it’s a huge “marine debris jellyfish” that she’s working on for the Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival.

The giant creature is part of a teaching aid that will hang in the main tent at the upcoming event Oct. 10-12. More about this in the final section of our tour.

Time is passing quickly and we have another stop to go before we visit the Feiro Marine Life Center. We say goodbye to the artist and take her business card because it’s hard to see all her varied art forms in just one visit. If you return for a visit at just the right time, you may see Bright felting her stones in public.

Contact Bright at 360-775-9159 or jennifer.brightpa@gmail.com.

about the history at the Feiro’s website: www.feiromarinelifecenter.org.

In its educational programs, the Feiro integrates art into its science curriculum.

Williams shows us the posters on nearby wall, explaining that they are evaluation products from the Feiro’s fifth-grade science program.

“We asked them to draw a poster as their evaluation tool.” She offers a stunning insight: “We understand that if you only have one content, then you are really only useful to the people who already are interested in the content. The goal of the Feiro in general is to be deeply relevant to the people who make up this community. Art is a huge piece of what’s happening here and this emerging coalescence would be really YOUNG JOHNSON remiss in not taking that into account.”

We’re almost ready to begin the last So … how do these ideas translate? part of our “official” tour of contemporary The Feiro’s approach to things is Ceramic fish are displayed from the Feiro Marine Life artists and artful collaborators — but really, interdisciplinary and collaborative, and Center’s Fish on the Fence program. In the background is you don’t have to go far to find artists and its involvement in the crab festival is one the Port Angeles City Pier. creative people when you’re down by the way that the Feiro extends its educational waterfront. We’re looking at a building at outreach and public presence. isn’t far away and it’s located right next to the the southwest corner of Railroad Avenue We’re winding things up, but let’s take a water. So let’s go down to the Feiro Marine Life and Lincoln Street in Port Angeles. The person coffee break. We’ll meet with crab festival director Center, where we’ll learn more about the local responsible for its fresh lease on life, inside and Scott Nagel at Common Grounds on Eighth Street connection between marine life education and out, is new restaurateur Young Johnson — she in Port Angeles. It’s late in the afternoon by now, art. As we approach the entrance, we notice a certainly qualifies as an artist! She’ll soon be but after covering a lot of territory, a cup of coffee huge metal octopus with a glass eye that glows serving up her casually elegant take on classic at colorful peaceful place sounds pretty darn when the sun hangs low in the west.

American cuisine. excellent! The Crab Fest has been an annual crowd The creature is surrounded by smaller She invites us to sit at her patio table in front of pleaser and now is in its 13th year. We talk about companions — including a welcoming crab her bistro called H20 and the name is perfect! The something called marine debris art. Nagel explains: with its arms raised to greet us as we enter the blue sky matches her blue striped awnings and her “We have a lot of education programs about building. This is another work by artist Clark hanging baskets are spectacular against the view of the ocean environment, which we really don’t the water in the strait.

Mundy, who also created the beautiful story pole think about. The past few years, the whole garbage Johnson describes her mission with H20. just inside the building. As we enter the Feiro situation in the oceans and questions of stability “I just want to re-define dining, I really do. (She Center, we see the pole and the people gathered on even our fish are starting to become prominent. giggles.) There are a lot of things — I’d like to be around the touch tanks. The place is a community So — there’s the garbage pickup every year. Twice a part of the revitalization of the downtown area. educational resource that connects its activities a year the beach cleanup of some other places in When this opens I’ll be making lots of statements with many other organizations and art plays a the country have started making art out of marine with it, as the customers can tell. I want to be a good huge role. We visit with the Feiro’s executive debris, so we thought it would be a good project to restaurateur, a good boss … I just want it all good …” director, Melissa Williams, who explains the do. We started with local artists.”

She looks around the corner and back. importance of art to the Feiro: Four local artists will be participating in the “We’ve got an international port on this side “I think that the goal of the Feiro in general is creation of a piece of their own design and the and a community on this side. I want this to be a to be deeply relevant to the people who make up public will have a chance to vote for the winner. meshing place — I want it all to mesh here right this community and art is a huge piece of what’s Driftwood artist Tammy Hall will be participating on this corner and I want it to be a destination for happening here. One of the benefits of the long — we’ve already met! the locals. I want it to be some place that people history of the Feiro is that we do have such great “This’ll be educational fun and we’re going to can come to, and when they leave, they don’t art work in and around the center. Fish on the have one sculpture that’s a community sculpture regret leaving their home. I want them to have Fence is a great example of the integration that that people can add stuff on to. Commitment enjoyed it so much that they were glad that they we’ve done over the years and that we continue.” to science and research is an important part of left their house to get out for a couple of hours …”

FOTF is an ongoing project for the Feiro and the Crab Festival because we have to sustain the She turns her thoughts to the future: “I don’t environment from which we get the fish.” you can see the many completed plywood and think Port Angeles is finished growing, yet. I think Nagel talks about importance working with ceramic fish that line the fences near the Landing one day people will figure out what it’s supposed local tribes and other groups to protect the Mall. The project had its beginning when the to be — Port Angeles will make up their minds for marine environment through educational late Paul Cronauer, owner of the Landing Mall, them. She’ll be what she’s meant to be …” projects: “Sarah Tucker got a commission from donated a large amount of plywood to the center, Johnson leaves us with some hopeful thoughts NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric suggesting that it might be employed to make and we look forward to seeing that open-forAdministration) to do art for them (from marine 20,000 fish to be used in a fundraising project. business sign on her door — 222 N. Lincoln St., debris), and we commissioned Jennifer Bright to The vision had merit, but the reality was that Port Angeles, 360-452-4261. do a jelly fish that’s going to hang at the festival.” the project started on a more modest scale. It We’ve met her too, remember? involved a combination art project/marine life Thank you Scott, for introducing us to this for study that was overseen by art teacher Melissa your educational tour of the Crab Festival Klein who worked with her students at the old Our coastal journey has drawn to a close …

Lincoln High School in a semester-long program until next time, be well and have a safe trip home.

We’ve met many creative people and looked that combined marine life study with art-making. at many their works in a short time. Our last stop You can see the numerous fish and read more See you down by the water! n

The Future, the Feiro and Fish on the Fence 16 LOP Fall 2014

Collaboration results in nearby tideland improvements A peek into the health of Sequim Bay

In

Story and photos by Alana Linderoth

comparison to more urban Washington bays, Sequim Bay is healthy from an ecological standpoint, according to natural resource officials with Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe. However, the tribe’s Natural Resource Department staff work continuously and closely with the bay to both ensure and enhance its health. This summer, the collaboration among a handful of organizations resulted in the cleanup of nearly 50 tires from the Sequim Bay, in addition to major improvements to the public tidelands in Quilcene Bay. Unlike a typical situation where Paul Argites, marine debris project assistant for the Northwest Straights Commission, would locate a marine area in need of work, he was approached by Ralph Riccio, shellfish biologist with the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.

Riccio had two areas in mind. The first site included marine debris cleanup in Quilcene Bay and the second at Sequim Bay. As middleman between Riccio and the Veterans Conservation Corps, a programed created to provide veterans with job opportunities while restoring and protecting Washington’s natural resources, Argites coordinated a crew to assist Riccio with both projects.

“The Puget Sound has a lot of exposed coastline and marine debris is a big problem,” Argites said. “The crews are great because they can get to places that aren’t very accessible.”

COLLABORATION Following the end of three full work days in Quilcene Bay, staff from the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe as members of the Northwest Indian Tribal Fisheries Commission, Northwest Straights Commission staff and Washington Conservation Corps crew members from the Veteran Conservations Corps were able to combine forces and remove 240 pounds of styrofoam and plastic debris and relocate more than 1,000 feet of cinderblocks abandoned in the bay years ago.

Reusing the derelict cinderblocks, the clean-up crew purposely placed them to better distinguish public shellfishing property from abutting private tidelands. In addition, the crew erected three monuments in order to designate the boundaries from afar, Riccio said.

Washington Conservation Corps crew members Alison Flury and Saray CarradaLopez try to get some leverage to pop a tire out of the tideland.

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Washington Conservation Corps crew member Fritz Peter and Northwest Straits Commission Marine Debris Removal assistant Paul Argites scoop out mud from inside the tires so they’ll be easier to remove from the tideland.

“Marine debris was limiting where our tribal members could harvest,” Riccio said.

The work accomplished in Quilcene Bay not only helped to resolve emerging conflicts because of unclear property boundaries, but removing the marine debris also exposed additional harvestable tideland areas, Riccio said.

The crew made its way farther northwest to Sequim Bay and dug out nearly one ton worth of tires from surrounding tidelands. Originally the tires likely were placed by past land owners along the bay for shoreline armoring, but were no longer serving any purpose and were essentially “garbage,” said Neil Harrington, environmental biologist with Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.

SEQUIM BAY IS HEALTHY, BUT. . .

Although Sequim Bay is a relatively healthy bay, Riccio said part of his job, along with his colleagues, is to continue to promote a healthy ecosystem. One of the challenges the bay faces is the prevalence of past shoreline armoring, such as seawalls and riprap. Shoreline armoring can impact fish species, including both smelt and sand-lance, by influencing the movement and size of sediments needed for ideal spawning habitat, Harrington said.

These challenges are coupled with the ongoing task of maintaining functioning septic systems and monitoring the water quality to ensure pesticides, fertilizers and similar pollutants aren’t running into the bay, Harrington said. In addition, more long-term challenges include sea-level rise and ocean acidification.

Since 2011 when the first case of diarrhetic shellfish poisoning was documented in Sequim

Washington Conservation Corps crew supervisor Junior Fuimaono and crew member Alison Flury dig out tires from the Sequim Bay tidelands.

Bay State Park, Harrington has turned his attention to studying the harmful algae blooms.

The phenomenon occurs during toxic algae blooms of several species of marine dinoflagellates. Although this is a naturally occurring processes and is likely a historical one, biologists like Harrington are studying the processes closely in order to identify whether or not there’s a human correlation with the occurrence of harmful blooms.

ONGOING EFFORTS While Harrington maintains close attention to the water quality in Sequim Bay, he also monitors the effectiveness of restoration projects.

“An example of a hugely successful restoration project is restoration at Jimmycomelately Creek,” Harrington said.

Since summer chum runs had dwindled to seven chum in 1999, Harrington said last year thousands of chum returned to the creek to spawn.

Another ongoing restoration project at work within Sequim Bay is restoring Olympia oyster populations.

“As filter feeders they (shellfish) are the kidneys of the water,” Harrington said.

“Maintaining healthy shellfish is very important.”

Although Olympia oysters are the native species to the Pacific coast, Riccio said overharvesting, the depletion of water quality and loss of habitat pushed the oysters out of the area.

Since, Pacific oysters were imported and have become the “marketable” oyster given they are fast growing and overall easier to cultivate, Riccio said.

In 2013, the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe collaborated with the Puget Sound Restoration

Fund to acquire 100 bags of “seeded cultch” or in other words oyster larvae on a shell, and have since reintroduced Olympia oysters to one acre of the bay. Riccio hopes to expand that area another half acre by the end of summer.

“As the native oyster species, Olympia oysters are key for a variety of marine creatures,” Riccio said. “Other species rely on the habitat the oyster beds create.

They (oysters) can influence how the whole ecosystem functions.”

To help with the tribe’s effort to restore the Olympia oyster population in Sequim Bay, Tori Cantelow has been working closely with Riccio and staff as their Olympia oyster intern through the Clallam County Marine Resources Committee. Cantelow recently graduated from Washington State University-Vancouver with a biology degree and returned to her hometown of Sequim where she was a 2009 Sequim High School graduate.

Since her internship began in early summer, Cantelow’s life has been controlled by the tides, she said. But, despite working on the tide’s timetable, Cantelow assures her internship has been rewarding and educational.

“I learned a lot about restoration and the preparation that really goes into a project,” Cantelow said. “Olympia oysters are important because they have a historical importance with the tribes along the Pacific coastline, they clean the water and create a more dynamic ecosystem.”

Cantelow has learned to thrive and appreciate the common and shared passion among people when doing restoration-centered work, she said.

Following her internship, Cantelow will begin working for Point No Point Treaty Council and continue her work with shellfish. n

Fall 2014 LOP 19

Keeping our beaches clean

Washington CoastSavers program keeps Clallam coastal and strait beaches clean and safe for humans and animals that call the ocean home Story by Mary Powell On most days, Clallam County’s pristine coastal beaches are open expanses of sand, seashells and seagulls, with but a few beachcombers looking for treasure or surfers catching a wave or two, sharing lunch or walking the shoreline. In other words, there is room for everyone at First, Second or Third beaches, Shi Shi, Hobuck or Rialto, to name a few of the spectacular beaches on the west end of the North Olympic Peninsula.

But, for two days each year, those beaches and others from Cape Disappointment on the southwestern Washington coast on up to Cape Flattery, at the northwest tip of the coast, become suddenly crowded with folks who’ve come not to beach comb, but beach clean.

(Washington CoastSavers also cares for Strait of Juan de Fuca beaches, but for space purposes, this story is about the coastal beach cleanup.)

The beach cleaners represent a number of participating community groups and public agencies, but collaborate under the auspices of the Washington CoastSavers, an alliance of partners and volunteers dedicated to keeping the state’s beaches clean.

“Last April we had 1,100 volunteers for the Washington coast cleanup,” said Jon Schmidt, Washington CoastSavers coordinator, referring to the April 19 cleanup along the outer coasts of Clallam County. A whopping 15.5 tons of debris were collected and taken off the coastal beaches during that cleanup, Schmidt said.

Surprisingly, he added, 70 precent of the volunteers come from the I-5 corridor of Washington rather than here in our own

Nurdles, a byproduct of manufactured plastic, is one of the leading components of marine debris. Photo courtesy of Google.

20 LOP Fall 2014

An interesting bunch of stuff is carried off the Ozette Beach along the northern tip of Washington during the Earth Day beach cleanup. Photo by Kelsie Donleycott, Washington CoastSavers. backyard. Increasing the numbers of local volunteers is one of Schmidt’s highest priorities since being hired a little more than a year ago as the first year-round coordinator of the Washington CoastSavers.

Born and raised in Minnesota, Schmidt earned a degree in natural resources management and when the wanderlust bug bit him, he traveled to the Pacific Northwest. He was hired at the Lake Crescent Lodge and immediately “fell in love” with the North Olympic Peninsula. And who wouldn’t? However, the job was seasonal, so Schmidt went to work for the Washington State Parks department, assigned to Cape Disappointment State Park, near Ilwaco.

“After 11 years in the fog and more than 100 inches of rain a year, I was glad to be back on the Olympic Peninsula,” Schmidt laughed. Plus, his wife Jennifer’s parents live in Sequim and she is the Clallam County 4-H coordinator. The couple have two young children. “It’s a good fit for us as a family,” said Schmidt, a quiet, thoughtful man, comfortable now being a stay-at-home dad,

working from home, balancing between being a father and CoastSavers. “All it takes is efficiency and effectiveness,” he said, as if that were an easy objective.

IN THE BEGINNING Volunteer groups have been cleaning up Washington’s Pacific Coast since 1971, started by the Pacific Northwest Four Wheel Drive Association. In order to coordinate the efforts of the citizens, the Washington Clean Coast Alliance was formed in 2007 and in turn launched the CoastSavers program.

Since 2000, the signature annual event has been the Washington Coast Cleanup, which started as a series of separate cleanups held every April in celebration with Earth Day. According to CoastSavers.org, between 2000-2012, there have been a total of 10,729 volunteers collect nearly 320 tons of marine trash.

A second annual event, the International Coast Cleanup was added in 2013 and will take place on Sept. 20 this year.

The CoastSavers is organized by a group of participating nonprofits, community groups, corporations and public agencies. The program is directed by a committee of representatives from the Surfrider Foundation, the Mountaineers, Clallam Bay-Sekiu Lions Club, Discover Your Northwest, Grass Roots Garbage Gang, Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, Olympic National Park and the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission.

Historically, there are three branches that became Washington CoastSavers: the Olympic Coast Cleanup, the Long Beach cleanups, organized by the Grass Roots Garbage Gang, and Operation Short Patrol, organized by the Pacific Northwest Four Wheel Drive Association.

The Olympic Coast Cleanup is the creation of Seattle environmentalist Jan Klippert. Although Klippert lived in the Seattle area, he enjoyed many visits and walks up and down the Olympic Coast. It was in 1997 he began to take notice of the tons of washed up debris on the beaches, odds and ends like left-behind fishing gear, plastic bottles, styrofoam, leftovers from campers and picnics and marine debris. Instead of ignoring the stuff, he decided to do something about it, and in 2000, with 300 volunteers ready to clean a beach or two, organized the first cleanup effort. Now, every April, as an Earth Day activity, more and more volunteers participate in the Washington Coast Cleanup.

Klippert died in early 2008. Then-CoastSavers coordinator David Lindau called Klippert a very inspirational figure. “I knew him for about a year, but I was impressed not only by his thoroughly infectious enthusiasm, but the fact that he continued to do all this in the face of such difficult times.”

MARINE DEBRIS AND NURDLES Consider this: You and the family decide to enjoy a picnic at your favorite beach. You stop at the store for supplies that might include a plastic tub of potato salad, a cardboard box of chicken, paper plates, plastic eating utensils and a sixpack of whatever everyone likes to drink, bound together by a plastic carrying handle.

After the fun day ends, no one seems to be able to find a garbage can for the empty containers and maybe a soiled diaper or two. What to do?

Unfortunately, some find the only answer is to leave it on the beach, maybe hidden behind a log or piles of sand. From there, wind and ocean currents impact where the so-called marine debris will go.

Our oceans are filled with items that don’t belong there, making marine debris one of the most widespread pollution problems facing the world’s oceans and waterways, reports the Marine Debris Program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Marine debris is defined by NOAA as any persistent solid material that is manufactured or processed and directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, disposed of or abandoned into the marine environment.

And that brings us to nurdles. What’s a nurdle, you might ask? Nurdles are a major contributor to marine debris. Preproduction plastic pellets often

This map shows the beaches taken care of by the Clallam County segment of the Washington CoastSavers.

Map courtesy of Washington CoastSavers. are called nurdles. They are very small and can look like a handful of tiny plastic balls, a bunch of pearls, glass chips or small plastic stones. Nurdles often are discharged into the environment while being loaded into railcars at plastic manufacturing facilities or being handled at those facilities. They then wash into storm drains and out into the open water. Nurdles and other small pieces of plastic, which contain harmful chemicals, are then eaten by fish, birds and other marine life. Because plastics take thousands of years to break down, nurdles wreak havoc for many generations.

“It’s amazing how much debris and nurdles we see out there,” Schmidt said of the most recent cleanup.

Marine debris, Schmidt explained, is a relatively new science, at least insofar as defining and removing it. He referred to what is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a phrase that has caught on in the past few years. These ocean garbage patches of all different sizes and shapes are found all over the world’s oceans, but the biggest and most well-known is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which lies in an area between Hawaii and California.

“Most of it is submerged underwater and made up of tiny pieces of (mostly plastic),” Schmidt said.

But, he added, there are larger items, too, such as fishing gear and whatnot, which makes the “garbage patch” visible, especially from the air.

TSUNAMI DEBRIS On March 11, 2011, a 9.0 earthquake struck off the coast of Japan, triggering a powerful tsunami that turned Pacific coastal communities into giant debris fields, which of course includes the North Olympic Peninsula coast. Hurricanes such as Katrina and Sandy wash up interesting items, as well.

“We saw an uptick in what we might think is tsunami debris, but we can’t be sure it’s from the March 11 earthquake, although some of the stuff has Japanese writing on it,” Schmidt said.

Perhaps no one knows more about potential tsunami debris than John Anderson. A retired plumber, longtime resident of Forks and an Olympic Peninsula beachcomber since 1976, Anderson has enough treasures to boast an

informal museum at his home just outside Forks.

Anderson is somewhat a celebrity himself — move over Bella and Twilight-mania — having had a story published in the Seattle Times and Forks Forum newspapers, been interviewed on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition, and having been to Japan to be part of a documentary in production regarding washed up debris from the tsunami.

For Anderson, living a hop, skip and jump from the glorious First, Second and Third beaches, as well as Rialto Beach, is akin to winning the lottery

How to volunteer with Washington CoastSavers Volunteer for one of Washington CoastSavers cleanups and help get marine debris off our beaches. You can help with: >> Running the volunteer check-in tables at each beach >> Transporting collected debris to local dump sites >> Holding after-cleanup barbecue celebrations Consider joining the INTERNATIONAL COASTAL CLEANUP on Sept. 20, 2014.

And of course, anytime you visit the coast, please collect as much debris as you like. But don’t leave your collected debris on the beach. Take everything you collect back to a roadside Dumpster or your home garbage/recycling.

E-mail at info@coastsavers.org or visit www.coastsavers.org for more information.

Fall 2014 LOP 21

If you’ve seen beaches that haven’t been cleaned, it’s amazing what’s out there.”

– Jon Schmidt, coordinator, Washington CoastSavers

A visitor looks out at the Pacific Ocean on a sunny day in March. This is Second Beach one of three aptly named First, Second and Third beaches near LaPush.

Fun Facts In the United States, counties directly on the shoreline constitute less than 10 percent of the total land area, not including Alaska, but account for 39 percent of the total population.

From 1970-2010, the population of these counties increased by almost 40 percent and are projected to increase by an additional 10 million people by 2020.

U.S. coastline: Atlantic Coast: general coastline, 2,069 miles, tidal shoreline, 28,673 miles; Gulf Coast, general coastline, 367 miles, tidal shoreline, 17,141 miles; Pacific Coast, general coastline, 7,623 miles, tidal shoreline, 40,298 miles; Arctic Coast, general coastline, 1,060 miles, tidal shoreline, 2,521 miles. Total, general, 12,383 miles, tidal 88,633 miles.

Source: Department of Commerce, NOAA, National Ocean Service

Two volunteers bring in a load of trash from Ozette Beach, which is a threemile hike in and and back out for those picking up beach debris. Photo by Kelsie Donleycott, Washington CoastSavers.

22 LOP Fall 2014

— the beach combing lottery, that is.

His front yard sports a sort of totem pole made up of floats he has found on his beach walks over the years.

In his upstairs loft museum are thousands of other items.

“I collect everything,” Anderson said during his interview with the Seattle Times. “I have a museum here that has everything that ever came in on the beach in there and most people call it garbage, trash and I call it treasure. I’ve beach-combed just about everything there is.”

Most recently, Anderson has found items that appear to have come from Japan. Walking along Second Beach, he found what A little more than a year ago, Jon looked like a dock, house beams Schmidt was named the first yearwith Japanese construction, a black round coordinator for the Clallam float of the type used by Japanese County arm of the Washington oyster farms and bottles bearing CoastSavers, a grant-funded Japanese markings. Perhaps the position from the North Pacific most stunning find, however, was Coast Resources Committee. a volleyball covered with Japanese inscriptions. Anderson said he wondered whose ball it was and if the person was still alive.

NOAA’s Marine Debris Program does warn that it is difficult to tell the origin of buoys and other items that regularly wash up on coastal beaches and suggests reporting anything you might think to be tsunami debris to DisasterDebris@noaa.gov. Include photographs if possible as well as the specific location of the debris.

WHAT’S NEXT Schmidt has two principal areas of responsibility; one is to find more funding for the CoastSavers and the other is to increase the numbers of volunteers and perhaps the number of cleanups per year. Neither one is very easy task.

For one, the Washington CoastSavers is a grant-funded position from multiple sources including the North Pacific Coast Resources Committee and a five-year plan that was developed in 2007 is beyond ready for updating, Schmidt said.

“We need to find funding beyond grants, a fiscal agent such as Discover Your Northwest.”

Discover Your Northwest is 501(c)(3) nonprofit social enterprise based in Seattle. It promotes the discovery of Northwest public lands and encourages stewardship for the natural and cultural heritage of Northwest public lands for generations to come. The organization partners with the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Washington State Parks, to name a few.

While the overhead is minimal, there is the cost of renting Dumpsters, bags, signs and paying Schmidt’s salary.

Schmidt admits he is an environmentalist at heart. “We owe to one another, to the animals that make the beaches and the ocean their home, to reduce debris and litter, to recycle,” he said.

This job, he said, gives him the chance to tape into environmental passions and help protect these special coastal places.

But, he continued, “CoastSavers isn’t about me. It’s about the volunteers who care enough to want to carry 40 pounds of trash on their back off the beach.”

Those, indeed, are the heroes who keep the Pacific Coast so breathtakingly beautiful. Hopefully, Schmidt will be able to convince more heroes to get on board. n

s

BEACH DISCOVERIES Interesting critters from the high tide line to the intertidal Story by Viviann Kuehl Photos by Wendy Feltham ANY BEACH ALONG THE SALTWATER is home to all kinds of interesting critters and fun for all ages to explore. Some beaches are better than others for finding things that have washed up, but you can find lots on any beach, from the high tide line to the water.

Walking onto a beach, the first thing you’ll come across is the high tide line, often marked by a row of plant debris, called the wrack line.

“The wrack line and all the life that’s in it is a good indication of a healthy beach,” noted Cheryl Lowe, Marine Resource committee coordinator with Jefferson County WSU Extension. “Sometimes there’s a lot when storms wash up and sometimes there’s not a lot. Sometimes it’s just a dotted line with little bits of seaweed, sometimes it’s a thick pile extending along the beach like a rope.”

Often mixed in is eelgrass, which looks like long ribbons of drying grass. It grows in meadows in low tide or just below low tide.

The long, whip-like tubes of bull kelp, crowned with large flat leaves coming out the bulb end, often are wrapped in the wrack or just lie on the beach.

It’s fun to play with the bull kelp strands and with a knife you can fashion crude cars out of the bulbous end, using slices of the tube for wheels and narrower bits for axles. If you are clever, you can keep the long line attached to the car and pull it down the beach.

“When you look closely at this wrack line, which is piled with all this stuff, it’s really filled with life and sand fleas are one the most common things,” said Lowe.

Amphipod is their scientific name.

“They hop around like crazy. There are a whole bunch of different kinds. You can find them in orange and green and purple spotted. I’ve played this game where I’ve tried to follow them as they hop around and they zigzag all over the place,” said Lowe.

However they hop, the sand fleas are an integral part of the beach ecosystem.

“What’s interesting for me to think about is these guys are really food for a lot of other critters,” said Lowe.

“When you see birds foraging on the beach, that’s often what they’re after — all these insects in the wrack line.

When the tide comes up, it’s a really good source of food for small fish we might see along the edge of the water.”

Crab shells often are in the wrack line, but that usually doesn’t mean the crabs died.

“As crabs grow, they get too big for their shells and then they shed their old shells and grow new ones. The old ones wash up on the beach,” Lowe explained. “Sometimes you can find perfectly intact shells and you can see all the details of the crab without the live animal there.”

There are lots of different kinds of crab shells that wash up, she said.

The purple shore crab is only up to 2.2 inches across.

Dungeness crabs, one of the biggest species, are easy to spot with their orange tones. Often found are red rock crab shells, with thicker shells and often brighter red or purple. Tiny little kelp crabs that are longer than they are wide, sort of the opposite proportion of a Dungeness, lurk in the kelp. The hairy helmet crab is a golden color, almost round.

At mid-beach, especially in sandy areas, there are little holes in the sand. Often clams are hiding below and the holes are where they put their siphon up. Clams are filter feeders, pulling in water through a siphon, a big long tube that connects them to their food source, microscopic particles in the water.

When the tide’s in they are feeding and when the tide’s out, the holes are where they’ve retracted their siphon until the water comes back. Some aren’t very deep; small clams like little necks or manila clams are 3 to 6 inches, sometimes less.

“If you dig right where the hole is, you’ll find them,” said Lowe. “If you dig them up to look at, it’s good to put them back in the hole and cover them back up when you’re done. If left out, birds and other foragers will eat them and the sand pile smothers the clams under it.”

If you have a shellfish license and want to eat the clams you find, filling in your holes is required.

As the tide goes out and you go lower on the beach, look at rocks and small boulders where you will find barnacles and limpets, small creatures hiding in their shells.

There are four basic kinds of barnacles, but they all have a tiny volcanic cone shape. The ones with a live animal inside have a closed valve in the top of the cone. If you can see an

Fall 2014 LOP 23

BEACH LEARNING There are some community programs on the Olympic Peninsula that give people an opportunity to learn about the shoreline environment.

SHORE STEWARDS The free Shore Stewards program, designed for anyone who lives near a shore or is interested in shoreline health, does not require a specific time commitment. It offers a monthly e-mail newsletter with interesting topics and tips on how to be a good steward, and notices for special events, including popular free workshops such as “Bluffs and Stability” featuring an expert to explain the erosion process and how to influence it.

To sign up, contact your county Extension agent.

For Jefferson County, contact Cheryl Lowe, at Jefferson County Extension, 360-379-5610 ext. 230, or cheryl.lowe@wsu.edu.

In Clallam County, contact David Freed, Clallam County coordinator, at 360-565-2619 or dfreed@wsu.edu.

BEACH WATCHERS Education and stewardship are the focus of this annual training event, which covers a full spectrum of shore topics in about 80 hours of training. Participants meet for a full day each week over six or seven weeks in the spring, plus four more in the fall. Each training day is half in class and half in the field, with many different experts on topics ranging from storm water to where local water comes from to intertidal life, and includes a whole day at the Port Townsend Marine Science Center exploring oceanography to plankton.

The training costs a minimal amount and participants pay back by volunteering in the community. The idea is to share the knowledge gained, either with education outreach or helping with a research study. Service can be done at WSU, the Marine Science Center, one of the fish conservation groups, the Conservation District or other organizations.

Call anytime to get on a list, and when the time comes for taking sign-ups, an e-mail will be sent to confirm your interest.

For more information, contact Cheryl Lowe, WSU Beach Watcher coordinator, 360-379-5610 ext. 230, cheryl.lowe@wsu.edu.

CITIZEN ACTION TRAINING SCHOOL This fall, for the first time, the North Olympic Salmon Coalition is offering a free regional training focused on citizen efforts to protect saltwater and watersheds through preventing pollution in storm water runoff, protection and restoration of habitat, and restoring and reopening shellfish beds.

Participants will learn about the environmental science of issues facing Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, regulation issues and project planning.

The processes that form habitat for salmon and other marine species are directly related to bluff erosion and the movement of sediment. As part of the training, a nearshore biologist and geologist will be sharing understanding of the interplay between erosion and habitat of marine life.

The free 50-hour, 12-week training is scheduled Wednesdays from 6-8:30 p.m. at the Sequim Library, 630 N. Sequim Ave., with three Saturday field trips.

At the end, each participant is expected to spend 50 hours on a project designed by the participant in public education and outreach, policy and on-the-ground activities relating to the three action items.

For information and an application, contact Reed Aubin, NOSC Education and Volunteer Program manager at 360-3798051 or raubin@nosc.org.

24 LOP Fall 2014

Bull kelp

opening in the top when the water is out, the barnacle has departed.

The water carries the very tiny young barnacles and you can find them almost everywhere.

“When they first find something hard, and that can be a rock or a boat bottom or anything, their heads attach and they build a shell around themselves, with their feet sticking up. When the tide is out their shell closes to keep them from drying out.

Look closely to find a little crack and that’s the part that opens and lets the legs out when the water comes back in. If you watch them under the water you can see these little feathery fans popping in and out as they pull the food back into the shell. They pull a bunch of different things in for food and clean the water as they do,” said Lowe.

Barnacles feed on plankton, microscopic animals, or they can eat plant material or seaweed.

Limpets often are found in same place as barnacles, attached to rocks and hard things in the lower intertidal zone, where most of the time they are under water. They are a bit larger than barnacles, with a flatter cone shape, like an Asian sun hat.

“They have really pretty stripes

and circles in various patterns,” noted Lowe.

There are four or five kinds of limpets. Many feed on algae growing on the rocks. Even though they look like they’re stuck in one place, they move around. Some live on seaweed and some live on rocks, so they can be found in lots of different places.

If you pick up some rocks where the sand is damp, you might find some little dark crabs hiding under them.

Shore crabs are small and easy to pick up. You can let them crawl across your hand without fear, because they are too small to bite.

Anemones also are found at the lower tidal area. Without a shell, anemones change remarkably with the tide. When the tide’s out they close up to protect themselves and look like round globs of jelly hidden in sand — the challenge is to realize they’re there.

They may be on a rock or look like they’re in sand, but they also attach to something hard. They don’t like to be buried, but they do tolerate sand and rocks the tide may fill in around their edges.

When the tide covers them with water, they open up more than twice

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Behind the Scenes at the Port Townsend Film Festival

Beach Discoveries continued: their closed size and become a tube topped with tentacles waving about, also filter feeding.

Aggregating anemone, greenish with pink tentacles, or sometimes green, have a symbiotic relationship with algae in their tissue and that’s what gives them their color.

To reproduce, they clone themselves and divide. Look at a cluster when half exposed and if you see one stretched out in one direction, twice as long as it’s wide, it’s probably starting to divide. The food web really starts with this plankton and all this stuff floating in the water.

“All these critters that are filter feeders are pulling food and other nutrients from the water, which is keeping it clean so we can swim in it and play in it and feel safe when we are at the beach, so we also need to do our part to help keep that water clean and not put in things that don’t belong there, like plastics, or oil spills or chemicals like herbicides that might flow from our yards into streams and then water where we’re harvesting the clams, so it’s all connected,” said Lowe.

“The most important thing is how they connect to us, food for larger animals, and us so think about arthropods eaten by birds and fish, and those eaten by otters and seals and whales and us,” Lowe said.

“As we walk the beach, it’s great to find little things and then to stand up and look around, and say, ‘OK, how is it all connected?’ The tide coming in and out, the wrack line and what’s actually there, and how that connects to the fish that we’re fishing for, and the birds that we watch and what they’re eating. It’s cool that it’s all connected.”

If you want to know what you’re finding, there are some great guides, said Lowe.

“One of my favorites is called ‘Common Intertidal Invertebrates,’ put out by Periwinkle Press as a laminated card with lots of pictures,” she said.

For more information and sea life guides, both the Feiro Marine Life Center in Port Angeles and the Port Townsend Marine Science Center are good resources and great places to visit.

“Even if you don’t know the name, take a guess at what it eats,” said Lowe. “That’s a great way to get the connections.” n

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Three girlfriends, vacationing together at Mar de Jade, a fancy yoga retreat located on the beach in Nayarit, Mexico, spotted a “mystery man” sitting alone at a table in the dining room and tried to guess his identity.

“We eyeballed him for a while,” says Martha Trolin, “and speculated that he was Sam Shepard.” Then someone at the communal breakfast table said he was director, screenwriter and novelist John Sayles, and the woman with him, his partner and producer Maggie Renzi. “This,” said Trolin, who admitted being instantly intimidated, “was even better than Sam Shepard.” They got on the phone and asked Janette Force, executive director of the Port Townsend Film Festival, if she’d like to invite him and Renzi to be this year’s special guests.

A courtship began.

Sayles is an icon in the world of film, an actor and one of the most prolific screenwriters and independent film directors in the world. He and Renzi agreed to come to Port Townsend for the Sept. 19-21 festival. Their acceptance created a storm of tweets and Facebook posts among film literati.

Past special guests have been Tony Curtis, Dyan Cannon, Cloris Leachman, Malcolm McDowell, Jane Powell, Debra Winger, Buck Henry, Karen Allen, Eve Marie Saint, Elliott Gould, Piper Laurie, Pat Neal and Bruce Dern.

Dern gave his stay in Port Townsend a ringing public endorsement.

“To be invited is just a joy to me, it was a level of arms around me that I’ve never seen — and I’ve been hugged by some biggies,” he said.

Dern was here while preparing for his role as Woody Grant in the film “Nebraska.” Woody is an old curmudgeon, no longer able to drive, who tries to walk to Lincoln, Neb., from Montana to pick up his “sweepstakes winnings.” For that performance he won The Cannes Film Festival best actor award. When Dern was introduced as an Oscar nominee for best actor, simulcast at PTFF’s biggest fundraiser of the year, the room of over 100 donors cheered.

Sayles, while not as well known by the general public as mainstream actors, is a shining star of independent film. With more than 14 screenplays, including “E.T.” and the “Apollo” series under his belt, and 18 films, including “Passion Fish,” “Lone Star,” “The Secret of Roan Inish,” “The Secaucus Seven,” “Brother from Another Planet” and the groundbreaking “Honeydripper,” he has twice been nominated for an Academy Award.

when they stepped Sayles also on land mines, a has written for Nazi victim with a television and has message of what published at least a is most important dozen non-fiction in life and heroic and fiction books. overcoming The Port of debilitating Townsend Film physical obstacles, Festival this such as cerebral year showcases palsy).

87 narrative, Narrative documentary filmmakers tell and short films stories that seem from 25 countries, truer than those all of them geared toward independently stereotypical made. Most films roles or situations were financed by that Hollywood the filmmakers produces. themselves, who Special guests are producer Maggie Renzi and filmmaker John In a nutshell, retained control Sayles. Photo courtesy of the Port Townsend Film Festival. the Port over their work, Townsend Film unencumbered Festival legitimately could use this slogan, by the demand for commercial distribution.

“Every human problem exposed, explored and In the studio system, the only films that are resolved in three days.” financed are those that will make money, Earlier in the year, 16 reviewers watched and no matter how compelling the story or the reviewed 500 new films submitted to PTFF for documentary. consideration. The festival must narrow down Independent documentary filmmakers expose the field to just 87 films that will be screened in or deeply investigate troublesome issues overlooked six theaters in Port Townsend’s walkable National by news media (such as child prostitution, slavery, Historic District. farmer suicide in India, chemical dumping into The festival also closes the length of Taylor rivers) as well as documenting good works (such as Street, erects a huge inflatable screen and shows prostheses made for elephants who have lost limbs

Festival passes The festival’s pass system cuts down on waiting in line. You flash your pass, take a ticket and take a walk or go get coffee, until it’s time to cue up to enter the theater. Shortly before the film starts you line up according to the number on your ticket and have a few moments to compare notes with neighbors to find out what they’ve seen and what they recommend.

Passes range from $35-$185 for all three days, with extra fees for concierge service.

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Behind the scenes — it gets technical As film wrangler, Owen Rowe is in charge of getting all the film content in-house, first for the submission and review process and for films actually programmed for the festival.

Reels loaded with 35 mm film have gone the way of the dinosaur, but being a digital festival brings new problems. There are a zillion possible formats, not all of which work for the festival, and it’s often not possible to tell until the film is in-house.

For a short film, the data might be small enough to fit on a USB thumb drive you can buy at the grocery store checkout, just dropped into an envelope and mailed.

Features tend to come on external hard drives, so Rowe has a basket full of computer hardware in his office. And there are all the problems with shipping physical media – just last week he got a disk in an envelope that looked like it had been run over by a truck, open on both sides, crushed in the middle and the thumb drive rolled in used bubble wrap.

An SQL Server database houses festival contacts and pass purchases, using an Access front end. An Objective-C Mac program converts the pass purchases to the colorful passes worn by festival attendees, say Chris and Pat McFaul, data management experts.

“We are currently designing an internal portal that will make the work flow of a film festival smoother and faster. Technologies being incorporated into the portal are based on the MEAN.js stack which includes MongoDB, Express.js, Anjular.js, and, Node. js. This will be a cloud-based solution that can easily scale for films that are submitted, transcoded and burned onto BluRay discs.”

a free classic film each night under the stars (and sometimes in wind and rain). Moviegoers sit on hay bales. This year’s free outdoor movies are John Sayles’ Irish folktale, “The Secret of Roan Inish,” “The Black Stallion” (in memory of Mickey Rooney who died this year); and Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall.”

Program director Jane Julian, who helped launch the Durango, Colo., Film Festival and who serves PTFF as a scout, attends film festivals at Sundance, Telluride, Nashville and South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, to keep a close eye on juried award winners and audience response. Her goal is to nab the best films for Port Townsend’s festival before someone else does, with a secure contract in hand.

Short films, 10-15 minutes long and rarely seen in commercial theaters, are paired with each feature-length film. “Short films are to film, what haiku is to poetry,” said Force.

All film descriptions are posted at www. ptfilmfest.com.

Festival-goers have some workable options.

The most popular pass is $100 that buys six films of your choice, free morning coffee with filmmakers and a membership card with access to the festival’s library of more than 1,000 films and discounts on local products. The full festival pass, $185, includes access to all theaters, most events and a full-course salmon dinner, served to 600 pass-holders, on Taylor Street.

Now the festival scrambles to find 300 pounds of salmon fillets.

I spent one morning in late July, talking with Sonny Rinehart of Ivory King Seafoods, to discuss 300 pounds of coveted sockeye. This transaction isn’t easy. The salmon had just been caught in Bristol Bay, Alaska, filleted, flash-frozen, vacuum packed and flown to an Anchorage freezer locker.

If we order from Rinehart, the fish would be freighted to Seattle where he would pick it up, cart it back to his store and keep it in his industrialsized freezer until the day before the dinner.

Forty filmmakers, advised that Sayles and Renzi will be here, quickly confirmed that they’d attend the festival in person, including Ross McKenzie, who is flying in from Costa Rica for the screening of his film “Bipolarized,” a documentary of his personal decision to discard medications and seek alternative treatment for his brain chemistry disorder.

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motion animated movie – with a still camera, Legos and a computer, at Firefly Academy’s “Film Camp” during the Port Townsend Film Festival from Sept. 19-21. Youngsters get their own personalized festival passes, make movie posters, Claymation animation and watch movies, adjacent to Taylor Street at 842 Washington St., Suite 104. For children 2.5 years of age or older. Cost is $10 per hour for the first child, $5 for your second. A film camp pass can be purchased for $100 and is good for the duration of the festival. Hours are Friday, 4-10 p.m.; Saturday 9 a.m.-10 p.m. and by request on Sunday. For more information, see www.fireflyacademy.com or call 360-471-6778.

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Huffington Post and formerly with the New York Times, is flying in from New York for the screening of his film, “Advanced Style,” about iconic older women defying age and expressing their creativity with fashion.

Bernard Attal, filmmaker of “The Invisible Connection,” jetting in from Brazil, lands in Seattle at the same time that Neal Block, one of the festival’s professional jurors, arrives from Magnolia Pictures, a Los Angeles film distribution company. This two-arriving-at-once is welcome news for festival volunteers (there are 300 of them) who drive filmmakers from SeaTac to Port Townsend and back again after the festival closes.

They join Alexandria Bombach and Mo Scarpelli, the festival’s first “Film Fellows,” who received three months of free lodging in a downtown, furnished condominium provided by the festival, where they are editing their footage on Afghanistan photographers. This housing is a step up from car camping, which they’ve done in the past in order to put all their funds toward their film projects.

All filmmakers have agreed to Q&A sessions after their screenings. The rest of the time they’re here, they talk with school children in Jefferson County, sit on panel discussions about the craft of filmmaking, enjoy the company of fellow filmmakers and bask in the praise of film lovers.

For many independent filmmakers, whose film may have taken years to finance and produce, the festival will be the only time they see it projected on the big screen with an audience. Worldwide, there are fewer than 3,000 festivals, and many are short lived. Port Townsend’s Film Festival is in its 15th year. n

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Footprints in sand circle Port Townsend parking lot, head east, and Because beach living walk past the marinas (there requires a kind of decorative are two boat basins). End at tackiness, I keep beach glass the Pourhouse (12 beers on in a clear glass bottle that tap, 200 bottled beers, ales once held Bainbridge Battle and ciders) on Washington Point Whiskey.

Street. There’s a nice sandy Olympic Peninsula beach beach out front, picnic tables, lovers know their beaches a petanque court and views of intimately. When the Elwha the Cascades, the Olympics, dams were removed and a and on very clear days Mount river of sand washed into the

By Jan Halliday Rainier.

Strait of Juan de Fuca we followed its drift east and west 2. NATIONAL HISTORIC with interest.

When a high bank collapses onto the DISTRICT BEACHES This retail area is only two blocks beach and we can suddenly pad easily where we once minced over rocks, we’re wide and about six blocks along the waterfront. Beginning at the ferry grateful.

We take note of incremental changes landing is a beach to sit on while you on our beaches: Where the oyster catch- wait. (The deer bring their fawns here to wade early in the morning.) Walk on ers feed, the islands of tangled kelp into town. At the end of Tyler Street after a storm, the remains of a broken is a pocket of sand with beach logs to dock deposited on the sand and the log sit on next to Better Living Through we sat on last year pulled off the beach Coffee. This little coffee shop is in one by high tide, flipped and now resting of Port Townsend’s oldest wood-framed 100 feet from where it was. buildings. Its history is posted inside.

Travel writers sing accolades of our beach towns. But not one has men3. AT THE END OF ADAMS STREET tioned this: Port Townsend, built at IS A TINY PARK the end of a peninsula shaped like a filled with flowerbeds, with access thumbprint (it’s called the “Quimper to the beach below. More than one sail” as if pinched out of pie crust into the boat has broken loose from its anchor water), is entirely walkable all the way and ended up on this beach. Follow around it on public beaches. Except for Water Street west to Pope Marine Park the last leg. It is a peninsula, not an island. You can cut across the Peninsu- with the smallest of gravel beaches on both sides of what used to be a concrete la from the Strait of Juan de Fuca back dump that’s been incorporated into the to Port Townsend Bay on San Juan landscaping. Kids love crawling all over Avenue. I know this is hard to imagthis. ine, so following is a beach-by-beach The Northwest Maritime Center, the description for you. large ochre-colored building that anchors the waterfront at Point Hudson, 1. LARRY SCOTT TRAIL/PORT TOWNSEND is Port Townsend’s outdoor living room, BOATYARD with pink plastic Adirondack chairs Beginning in the Port Townsend on its brick-paved courtyard that faces Boatyard off of Sims Way, the Larry water and wharf. Velocity coffee shop Scott Trail parallels Port Townsend opens early here; it’s a favorite place to Bay’s northwest shore. It begins on watch the sun and moon rise. a former railroad bed and goes past the Port Townsend Paper Mill (and 4. POINT HUDSON TO POINT WILSON (LOW eventually will link with the Discovery TIDE ONLY) Trail all the way to Port Angeles). You Point Hudson’s white and can walk up and back, about one mile round trip. When you come back to the See FOOTPRINTS, Page 33▼ For 45 years, a Northwest Original!

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green-shuttered buildings are a former Coast Guard station, built around a boat basin, now used for everything from sail-making and wooden kayak sales to restaurants, such as the 28-year-old Shanghai. Shorebirds feed in eelgrass beds offshore, so bring your binoculars. You can also spot your destination, Point Wilson, built in 1913, about three miles down the beach. If the walk is too long, haul out at Chetzemoka Park (there’s a ramp and trail up to groomed lawn, gardens, gazebo, kitchen shelter) and walk back to town on Monroe Street.

In front of the park are the best warm, sandy wading pools at low tide.

You can also haul out at the Marine Science Center wharf at Fort Worden and take a bus back to town (check the schedule at Jefferson Transit).

5. POINT WILSON TO NORTH BEACH (LOW TIDE ADVISED) This beach walk, about two miles, parallels the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

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6. NORTH BEACH TO GLASS BEACH Once Port Townsend’s jealously guarded source of beach glass, the remote beach, facing the mouth of Discovery Bay, is the site of an old garbage dump that was actively used through the 1950s. Picking was good in the early 1980s but not so good now. Take water and food – it’s about an 8-mile round trip. Begin at North Beach park, as the tide goes out on a minus tide day, and keep a watchful eye on the crumbling bluffs. It’s where I still find a marble or two and where I always sunburn the back of my neck.

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FallFall 2014 LOP 3333 2014 LOP

The schooner Martha, shown here in the 2013 Classic Mariners Regatta, left Port Townsend for California on Aug. 23 to participate races that culminate in the Trans-Pacific Yacht Race next July. Photo by Ashlyn Brown

Port Townsend’s pride heads for blue water Schooner Martha en route to Trans-Pacific Race to Hawaii Story by Robin Dudley ONE OF PORT TOWNSEND’S ICONIC HOME-PORTED SAILING SHIPS, the schooner Martha, left port Aug. 23 for a year-long trip culminating in the Trans-Pacific Yacht Race in July 2015.

Martha is a historic staysail schooner, used for sail training and known for her graceful lines and speed. She often wins races with a crew made up of local students led by Capt. Robert d’Arcy, 56, and his wife, Holly Kays, 50.

They brought Martha to Port Townsend from Seattle about 12 years ago under the aegis of the Schooner Martha Foundation.

The core crew for the trip, d’Arcy said, is himself, his wife, their daughter Mary, 11; and Christopher Hanke, Rosie Lund and Annie Aldrich. They’ll head first to the San Francisco Yacht Club, whose commodore in 1907, J.R. Hanify, had the vessel built and named after his wife, Martha Fitzmaurice Hanify.

Martha began the voyage in the Great San Francisco Schooner Cup on Sept. 6, d’Arcy said, then intends to sail in the Leukemia Cup fundraising sail on Sept. 21-22, then depart for Oxnard, Calif., and spend the rest of the fall sailing the Channel Islands. Then it’s off to San Diego for a stint at the San Diego Maritime Museum.

Around Thanksgiving, the plan is to sail down the outer coast of Baja California to Cabo San Lucas and up to La Paz, spending December through February in the Sea of Cortez.

It’s back to San Diego for the American Schooner Cup in mid-March 2015, then up to Ventura, Calif., for a haul-out and maintenance before returning to San Diego for the Yesteryear Regatta in mid-May. “Then we’ll hot-foot it to San Francisco,” d’Arcy said, for the Master Mariners Regatta at the end of May. Additional crew will arrive for the big race, the Transpac. They’ll transit to Long Beach, Calif., to be in the first group of boats starting on June 13 from Point Furman for the race that goes to Honolulu, Hawaii.

D’Arcy expects to complete the blue water race in 12-14 days.

After the Transpac, they’ll spend some time in the Hawaiian Islands and toward home, to first the Victoria Classic Boat Festival and race in late August 2015. Martha intends to be home in Port Townsend for the 2015 Wooden Boat Festival, d’Arcy said.

GET THE WORD OUT One purpose of the year-long journey, d’Arcy said, is to get the word out about Port Townsend as a mecca for marine trades excellence and as a vacation and education getaway.

For example, he said, “very few people know about opportunities for kids to take sailing classes” at the Northwest Maritime Center. Wooden boat enthusiasts tend to think of Maine before Port Townsend.

34 LOP Fall 2014

“In my experience, Rockport, Camden (Maine) people know,” d’Arcy said. “Not as many know about Port Townsend.”

By sailing Martha as an ambassador, he intends to change that.

The Port Townsend Marine Trades Association, the Port of Port Townsend and the Northwest Maritime Center will supply informational literature for Martha’s crew to hand out in their various ports of call.

“We really embrace Port Townsend as our home,” d’Arcy said. “And I think the community has really embraced Martha. We appreciate the support we have received.”

Martha’s main purpose is sail training.

Throughout the spring and fall, Kays and d’Arcy take students from the Port Townsend School District’s OCEAN (Opportunity, Community, Experience, Academics and Navigation) program sailing in the Friday evening races on Port Townsend Bay. Kays and d’Arcy get them involved in every aspect, from reading the charts to setting the spinnaker.

And they let the youths do the work, handle the lines, fit the winch handles, steer the boat.

Their daughter, Mary, is home-schooled and her education continues on the trip.

“OCEAN teachers have provided learning materials for Mary,” d’Arcy said, adding they still are working on finding someone to be the custodian of a ham radio in a Port Townsend classroom so Mary could call in and talk about her travels.

Regardless, the crew “will send e-mails to various people about our exploits,” d’Arcy said, and “on the Transpac site you can click a tracker” to monitor Martha’s position.

SAFETY GEAR Equipping Martha for the trip has been expensive, d’Arcy said, but it’s part of the mission of the Schooner Martha Foundation to market and support the maritime cultural traditions in Port Townsend. Many corporations have provided free or reduced-rate equipment, including Winslow Life Raft, Garmin, P.T. Rigging, P.T. Foundry, the Port of P.T., Northwest Sails, P.T. Sails and the Northwest Maritime Center, which provided shop space to build a new foremast in 2012 and to repair the mainmast last winter.

D’Arcy never formally studied engineering.

“I’m kind of a napkin-sketch engineer,” he said. He grew up in Warwick, R.I., and is a fourth-generation boatbuilder. He makes a living not with the nonprofit Schooner Martha Foundation, but with his own business, Robert d’Arcy Marine Services. He does historic vessel restoration and management, including boats such as the Katie Ford, Juna, Bout, Zodiac and the steamship Virginia V. He explained the numerous hurdles Martha has had to clear to participate in the Transpac race, including a stability test that Martha passed with flying colors, he said.

“We kind of knew because we sail her that she’s stiff,” he said. “But now we mathematically know she’s a very stable boat.” n

The beauty and mystery of Rialto Beach

by Christi Baron

Rialto Beach, located in

the Olympic National Park, and just 12 miles from Forks, is one of the most beautiful and easily accessible beaches on the West End. It’s natural untouched beauty shows no signs of its interesting past, which includes shipwrecks, death and for a fleeting moment in time a brush with the wild times of the roaring 1920s and Hollywood.

Sometime in the mid 1920s a “mansion” was built overlooking the estuary of the Quillayute River and Rialto Beach. While by real mansion standards it probably was not in that category, it did have a million-dollar view. While only a few remnants of the home still remain today the man who called it his vacation residence still causes locals to ask “Who was he?”

Claude Alexander Conlin was born in Alexandria, S.D., in 1880.

As a young man Conlin made his way to Skagway, Alaska, during the Gold Rush. Being young and naive, he was taken for every penny he had by Soapy Smith in the shell game. The story goes that Soapy took pity on him and made him a member of his gang, putting him in charge of managing Smith’s prostitutes.

His experience with the Smith gang gave him a lifetime of education in the art of the confidence man.

Between 1915 and 1924, Conlin, under the stage name “Alexander, The Man Who Knows,” was a popular and highly paid stage mentalist. He promoted his psychic act as a form of mental telepathy or mindreading. Audience members gave him sealed questions, which he answered from the stage. His techniques were not revealed during his lifetime. He is credited as the inventor and/or popular developer of a number of electrical stage effects which were the forerunners of modern electronic stage effects.

Although Conlin started out as a stage illusionist, he eventually discarded the large props and relied on his tremendous skills as a Top: Claude Conlin’s million-dollar view would have included James Island, just off Rialto Beach. Photo Christi Baron.

Middle: A guest poses on the steps of the “mansion.”

Right: One of Conlin’s Vaudeville era posters.

showman to put over an act of mentalism and psychic readings. As the turbaned Man Who Knows, Conlin earned $4 million over the course of a relatively short career.

It is believed that he had seven marriages (sometimes to more than one woman at once), spent time in local jails and federal prison, stood trial for attempting to extort an oilman’s millions, once had a failed attempt at outrunning the authorities in a high powered speed-boat loaded with bootlegged liquor and possibly admitted to killing four men.

Conlin retired from the stage in 1927, at the age of 47. He remained part of the social circles of entertainment personalities in California, counting among his friends stars like Marion Davies, Margaret Sullivan, Jackie Coogan, Harold Lloyd and Clara Bow. It was during this time that he spent periods of time at his West End mansion, entertaining his show business friends with fishing trips and walks on the beach. It also was thought that

Conlin may have been participating in some illegal activities at this time, which may have included “rum running” during Prohibition and even human trafficking.

On Conlin’s property there was the main house and several other outbuildings, including separate quarters for domestic help. The property also featured look-out type structures in the trees. A woman who had a crystal ball reading with Conlin identified these structures as where the readings took place.

She also said his gaze was truly hypnotizing.

He invested a great deal of money into the production and printing of beautiful chromolithograph posters for his stage show and later sold the collection. He also wrote books and had a publishing company.

Conlin died in Seattle in 1954 at the age of 74.

He traveled from the gold fields of Alaska to dance parlors on the Barbary Coast to the most luxurious theaters in North America and to the West End of Clallam County where he may be responsible for naming Rialto Beach.

Conlin’s vacation home mysteriously burned to the ground around 1930. There is speculation that the local residents may have had something to do with it, not approving of Conlin’s “Hollywood ways.”

Today Conlin’s former property is inside the boundaries of Olympic National Park, just a few concrete bulkheads, the terraced hillside and ivy remain to remind visitors where Conlin’s “mansion” once stood. n

Fall 2014 LOP 35

photo courtesy of Elaine Grinnell

WHEN MEMBERS OF THE JAMESTOWN S’KLALLAM TRIBE speak reverently of “traditional times,” they may be harkening back in their history to as recently as 1874, when about 20 families established a community at Jamestown Beach north of Sequim — or as distantly as 10,000 years ago when their ancient and enterprising ancestors survived and thrived by drawing upon resources from the sea and shore in more than a dozen coastal villages.

According to the tribe’s video, “Legacy of Our Ancestors: Treaty Resources of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe,” long before written history, there were fishing villages on every river and stream emptying into what would be named the Strait of Juan de Fuca, from the Hoko River in the west to the Hood Canal in the east.

Villages would have an average of 150-600 people encamped around a freshwater source by a beach and the sea and rivers teemed with a cornucopia of fin fish and shellfish. Especially exalted were five species of native

Beach resources of ancient Klallam Story by Patricia Morrison Coate

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salmon, both for food and folklore — chinook, coho, chum, pink, sockeye and steelhead.

The ancestral S’Klallam, according to Gideon Cauffman, the tribe’s cultural research specialist and an archeologist, “had a much more diverse diet than people would think — they ate multiple types of fin fish and shellfish and sea plants such as seaweed, which they could dry. The S’Klallam still are heavily reliant on the beaches for our seafood today.”

Fin fish also included smelt, lingcod, halibut, flounder, sturgeon, herring and the eggs of some varieties. Other bounty from the sea the early S’Klallam dug and/or gathered were cockles, musssels, clams, oysters, octopus, squid, crab and geoduck. Nearshore plants in their diet included wild carrots, tiger lily roots, ferns, Oregon grape, camas bulbs, broadleaf arrowhead tubers, salal, red-flowering currant and at least nine different kinds of wild berries — they would eat the tender shoots and the fruit.

Foraging for food was a full-time occupation. Men would fish from small wooden cedar canoes in saltwater by spearing, trolling, gillnetting or line fishing. They also built weirs or fish traps woven from young fir trees across all or part of a river, using the current to their advantage. Smaller fish, such as smelt and candlefish, were caught by digging holes in the beach and stranding them when the tide went out. Herring were raked from the water with tines made of elk bone.

“They had U-shaped halibut hooks, much like they are today, made of bone or wood and made nets out of stinging nettle stems to make twine,” Cauffman said.

S’Klallam men also hunted more than 30 types of water birds, especially geese, brants, loons, cranes and ducks.

Women gathered and prepared plants for eating and dug out burrowing shellfish and bulbs by using sharply pointed ironwood sticks. They cooked food by roasting it over a fire and steaming or baking it by heating stones in a sand pit lined with seaweed or cedar boughs.

“Shell middens — prehistoric garbage dumps — have been found locally with shell fragments, charcoal, bones, artifacts and plants with an average being 300-500 years old and the oldest at 1,300 years old,” Cauffman said.

“They’re usually a cutback inside a cliff and there probably are a dozen identified from Port Angeles to Port Gamble. They vary in depth but the average is about 10 feet and you can get a lot of information on diet, population size, period of occupancy and if it was a spring or fall village.”

In some form, fishing and gathering in the tradition of their ancestors continued into the mid-20th century for the S’Klallam.

Tribal elder Elaine Grinnell, 77, recalls growing up in Jamestown and the marine resources that were part of her family’s daily diet.

“Salmon was at the top and I remember smelt — my people used to dry or fry them — and then there was octopus, a wonderful food to have, plus all the different kinds of clams: cockles, geoducks, horse clams and butter

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clams,” she said. “Crab was really important, too. We also had lingcod, halibut and mussels — anything out in the sea.

If we had it, I know we ate it. We also would eat the eggs of all the fish and spiny sea urchin eggs, too. We had a very balanced diet.”

Grinnell remembers eating pickled kelp, fresh seaweed as a lettuce and something the S’Klallam called “Chinese shoes,” which appeared on beaches after storms.

“All these things we still eat and that’s a joy in itself because we still have them.

However, we’ve seen our (Americanized) diet change a lot in the past few years and we’re trying to go back more to the roots of the S’Klallam diet,” Grinell said.

Even after contact with Europeans for some 300 years and much assimilation, the S’Klallam still mark special occasions — and casual family gettogethers — by cooking salmon in a method passed down through millennia.

According to Grinnell, each salmon to be served is filleted, butterflied and skewered several times horizontally so Illustration by Dale Faustich, courtesy of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe the filet stays open. Two cedar sticks from 2-4 feet long are positioned along Grinnell said. pgst.nsn.us/ (Port Gamble S’Klallam). the spine and clamped together, then (Much of the historical information was comFor more information on the Jamestown pounded into the beach next to a hot fire. piled from “The Jamestown S’Klallam Story” by S’Klallam and other related Klallam tribes on the “Depending on the thickness, it takes 30-45 Joseph H. Stauss, published in 2002 by the JamesOlympic Peninsula see www.jamestowntribe.org; minutes. If the fire’s too hot, you bend the stick back; if you want more heat, you push it forward,” www.elwha.org (Lower Elwha Klallam) and www. town S’Klallam Tribe.) n

NOW &

THEN Point Hudson wasn’t always so bustling Point Hudson is the little marina and RV park at the end of Water Street in Port Townsend. Its entrance opens onto Port Townsend Bay and Admiralty Inlet. It is the home the annual Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival and it is an every day port for recreational boaters of every description.

Today it bustles with activity, especially in summer months during boating season, but it wasn’t always such a busy place. In the early 1920s, most folks around Port Townsend didn’t have much use for the little harbor. The Port of Port Townsend leased it briefly, but then turned it back over to Jefferson County when the port decided to construct its Boat Haven marina elsewhere.

County officials promptly sold it to the federal government. Under federal management, it became the site of a quarantine hospital for the Bureau of Immigration, but the building was never used for that purpose. Instead, Point Hudson became home to the military. It was a Coast Guard station from 1936 until the start of World War II. The U.S. Navy took over the base during the war years. During the Korean conflict, the U.S. Army used Point Hudson as part of its Fort Worden complex. But as conflicts waned and the armed forces reorganized, the marina and the property that surrounds it was declared surplus, and in 1956 the Port of Port Townsend purchased the facility.

For 40 years, the port leased the property to a private management company. Then, in 2002, the port took full control of the marina and its associated uplands and has worked to improve and restore the historical buildings on the site. Today, Point Hudson is a thriving, busy little marina, ringed by marine trades businesses and restaurants, and perched on Today’s photo by Fred Obee.1960 photo from the collection the prettiest piece of real estate you are likely to find. of the Port Townsend & Jefferson County Leader.

Fall 2014 LOP 37

LIVING

END

Beach Wise

By Rev. Pam Douglas-Smith

Living on a peninsula has its own magic.

Being surrounded on three sides by water gives one an open perspective on the world and its possibilities. Instead of abiding amid solid earth, our flowing Salish Sea brings currents and tides to our shores and invites us to embrace the wonder of change. At the heart of the peninsula are the Olympic Mountains and national forest and park, but we live mostly at the far edges with shorelines of towns and farms and beaches.

The sea is ever beckoning us out to observe and enjoy the beauty of the world that surrounds us.

There’s something magical about the seashore and its beaches. From early childhood, we walk the sands in search of shells glistening … we build sandcastles with moats of seawater and turrets made of driftwood … we search the water’s edge for sand dollars and tidal pools for sea life in its tiny forms. As adults, we return to this sacred space to breathe fresh air that smells of salt and to walk upon soft sand as we step over driftwood and stones … we still look for shells, perhaps still build sand castles and notice the small things we are usually in too much of a hurry to notice in our daily lives. It is a place of magic for us still.

The beach is a place of ever-shifting natural wonder. A place where sea and sky and land merge, yet each still holds its own completeness.

The sky above the water changes minute by minute as sunlight radiates and clouds pass overhead. The surface of the sea responds to breezes from above and currents from its own depths with surf tipped waves that are called “white horses” in Scotland. How beautiful the bays and straits are when the white horses are charging across the surface. Even the land transforms in shape and size with the tidal level of the seas. One day a beach is there to walk upon and the next it may be submerged beneath changing waters.

We are so blessed to be have so many beaches here on the Olympic Peninsula and each beach has its own unique character … from North Beach in Port Townsend where the sunlight still shines on the horizon even at night in summer … to the exciting tumultuous waves of the Pacific Coast that humble one … to a low tide walk out to the intricately carved sea stack at Port Angeles’ Salt Creek Park … and to the long, slender expanse of smooth sand that draws you all the way to the lighthouse at the Dungeness Spit.

On some beaches, the waves bring in tiny shells as tokens to discover. On others, little rocks or large boulders are left behind at high tide. There are even sea glass beaches where treasures of colored glass have been tossed

38 LOP Fall 2014

into smoothness by the motion of the sea and left to be found. And everywhere, one finds the beautiful stacking of stones from large to small in the symmetry of little cairns marking the path by other beach walkers.

There is a perfect inspiration about beach life that my mother gifted me with many years ago … “Gift from the Sea” by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. It was first printed in 1955 but has continued to be a treasured book for generations. In it, the wife of the worldrenowned pilot Charles Lindbergh shares her life, much of which was spent on beaches around the world. It is a beautiful meditation on the joys of beach living and how it reflects our daily lives in its timeless wisdom.

In the beginning, she reminds us of what we tend to do far too often in modern life — probably far more so even than when she wrote the original manuscript. She arrives for her beach time with a faded straw bag filled with things to do, books to read and projects to complete while at the beach in retreat. She has forgotten for a moment that “the beach is not the place to work, to read, to write or to think.” It is a place to lay down all those outer things for a while.

For it is the place to fall into nature and to just be, remembering that we are “human beings” rather than “human doings.” As she settles into what she calls “beach-wise” life with a gentle drifting through her day in tune with the cycles of the tides, she finds that from the depths of her own being treasures emerge. “Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choice-less as a beach — waiting for a gift from the sea.”

What gifts has walking on beaches brought you? The gift of time alone in silence or walking in conversation with a loved one. The slower pace of beach time that allows you to amble and to find the perfect stone to sit on for a while. The little treasures you begin to notice as you look down at the sand around your feet. Treasures that may not have been there before that last high tide deposited them for you to find. All reflective of the movement of your inner tides and the emergence of new awareness as you open to receive it.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh speaks of beginning her beach time with filling pockets full of lovely shells. Each one that draws her attention is collected to be carried home and placed on a shelf or window ledge. It also can become the gathering of tokens rather than the sheer joy of experiencing them in their natural environment in the moment. She begins to realize that to try to collect all the beautiful shells is simply

impossible, and so she writes, “One can collect only a few, but they are more beautiful if they are few.” Gradually, she returns many to the beach while keeping one of each kind that sets itself apart by its uniqueness and beauty.

As Anne Morrow Lindbergh begins her return to life after her beach time, she remembers the gift of each shell and the message she seeks to carry with her at home.

“When we start at the center of ourselves, we discover something worthwhile extending toward the periphery of the circle. We find again some of the joy in the now, some of the peace in the here, some of the love in me and thee which go to make up the kingdom of heaven on earth …. There are other beaches to explore. There are more shells to find. This is only a beginning.”

We, too, can encounter our beach walks not just as times out in nature but also as holy moments of communion with something larger than ourselves. We can build sandcastles that disappear with the next tide or collect stones to create cairns we leave for others. We can walk just on the dry part of the sand or let the waves lap over our feet. We can run toward the incoming waves or retreat from the splashing surf to higher ground. We can embrace the flow of the in-rushing sea bringing new wonders as well as accepting those ebbs of tide that carry things away.

For what the tide brings in, the ebb reveals as the hidden treasures unseen until the water departs awhile. We can gather shells, stones, sea glass and driftwood or we can just sit amid them in silence. Each a special moment in time with its own treasures to be found outside and within oneself. A nourishing of soul and a renewal of life energies from encounters with the sea and its shore.

We are blessed to live on a peninsula, so to find a beach takes very little effort. To make the time to be really present to all that awaits you there perhaps takes a bit more effort, but how worthwhile. Let your life be inspired by all the amazing beaches that invite you to their shores.

Go there, experience the wonder, gather a token to remind you of what you found there and give it a place you’ll notice it at home. Gift yourself with something wonderful … become truly beach-wise.

Rev. Pam Douglas-Smith is minister to the Unity Spiritual Enrichment Center in Port Townsend, a presenter at conferences in the U.S., Italy, France and Great Britain, and spiritual tour guide for a Cathar & Magdalene Pilgrimage to France in September. She can be contacted at revpam@unitypt.org.

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